Definitions of Unapologetic Delirium
by neverland300690
Summary: "...There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again." Eric Roth
1. Chapter 1

**AN: **I just saw RocknRolla for the first time and i realized that if i didn't write this down, it would kill my imagination, because the plo just kept banging around my head. Its gonna be short and not really in the vein of the movie because lets face it, i can't write that. but i hope i keep true at least to the characters.  
For the little girl here, and later the grown one, i imagined Mia Wasikowska, because she just fits. I hope you like.

**Part 1**

"_There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with our first great sorrow. Before we know what it is to have loved and lost, to despaired and have recovered hope." ― George Elliot_

_o_

**_Chapter 1 _**

She had been thirteen years old when Johnny Quid had died.

Well… now - about nine or something years later - she should probably say _'when Johnny Quid died for the first time'_, but that was the problem: he had died once and only that time for her. After that, she hadn't hurt as much. It wasn't nice to say that, and maybe that made her callous, but after that first time, she had lost the ability to be surprised by anything he did – death included. Johnny Quid – that became the joke in some circles she ran in, but Lisa had never, not once, found it funny.

But it had never been quite like that first time, and that was the pure truth. Possibly because she had been so young then. She had never known any kind of sorrow, or fear or loss. She had lived a very sheltered life, in many ways she was still a child. So when she found him that fateful night, looking grey and cold to the touch… there had been no means in her to deal or even understand the absolute despair she felt.

Lisa had known that he did drugs - he and his friends talked about it often enough and she knew enough about the argument never to repeat a word of what she heard to another living soul - but in her mind she had not been able to truly dissect what that meant. She didn't have the means to understand the harsh reality of it beyond a group of teenagers laughing all over the Persian carpets of her living room.

The only thing that Lisa shared with Johnny Quid's world was the name of their school and her sister, who played in his band.

Jocelyn Wilbur, a.k.a. Will to for her friends. (Cee to her sister alone) was a guitarists and she played with Johnny and three other boys in their band. They practiced in her house's basement, and had parties and even though Lisa was almost five years younger than both her sister and Johnny, she still hung in the fringes of their life – and Cee let her, because she could see how much Lisa adored it.

It was just so much fun, even though all Lisa did was just sit there with a camera of a sketchbook and look at them. They were so glamorous in her eyes, so impossibly free and cool and alive. rock&roll with a side dish of danger, because being around them always felt just a little bit wrong, as if she was doing something she shouldn't be doing… and Lisa loved it.

There were four boys in Cee's band, but Lisa liked Johnny best of all. Mostly because she had known him every since she could remember, seeing that Cee was the closest thing he had to a best friend. And also because… well, it was silly and stupid and Lisa would never admit it to a living soul… but she had a crush on him. And why not - he had the sweetest smile and always made her laugh and never talked to her like she was a retarded five year old. He was the only one in her sister's band that actually talked to her period – the other doofus' looked at her like she was a pet or something. Johnny knew better, and Lisa adored him for it.

She remembered this one time when they had all been sitting in the kitchen eating and talking about their next gig, when – without warning or any obvious motive - Johnny had grabbed Lisa and thrown her over his shoulder kicking ad screaming and then run all over the house with the others chasing him and Lisa laughing and Cee staring after him in irritation, rolling her eyes. One particularly loud _'if you get her hurt I'll rip your spleen through your back Johnny'_ followed after them and Lisa felt like smiling. She had been thrown in the pool and the four boys came crashing down after her, laughing and howling like wolves.

That had been a fund day.

There were not-so-much-fun days as well, but Lisa had only ever had glimpses of those, which was perhaps why she had no understanding of what drugs really did to you – or Johnny, as was the case. But Cee didn't feel the need to educate her baby sister on that particular subject. Years later Lisa had understood that her sister was trying to protect her and she acknowledged that, had she been in Cee's place, Lisa would have probably done the same thing… but sometimes she couldn't help but wanting to have had some kind of warning. But Cee didn't keep her around when Johnny was all glares and sneers and filthy words and short-temper.

Cee knew that Lisa loved having Johnny around (the more the merrier was her little sister's philosophy, something Cee suspected was because she missed her parents, who were almost never around anymore.) They were both used to him, he had his own room and everything, seeing that every now and then he took a vacation from his house and came to stay over, sometimes for weeks (god knew Cee understood!). But though Lisa cared for Johnny like she would for a big brother, she was just a kid still and she wouldn't understand it if he snapped at her seemingly without motive, and Cee had enough presence of mind not to keep her around when he got like that.

Something else Lisa never really understood back then was the true nature of that gleam in Johnny's eyes sometimes. She never really comprehended that it was not quite like her own, not happiness or laughter. never caught the particular manic signs in his behavior sometimes. Cocaine will do that to you... but Lisa had been barely thirteen, she didn't really know all that. Not yet anyway.

She found out exactly what that mean on Cee's class graduation party.

And she could never quite forget it.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 2 _

The after-party - or something like that - was in their house and Lisa was not supposed to have been there but her there had been some trouble that she didn't know (all she had heard was Cee screaming on the phone and then declaring someone was fired), so she ended up being staying at the house anyway. She could hear Cee's band playing from three floors up and Johnny singing. She liked to hear him sing. Most of their songs were angry and fast and screaming and heavy, but there were some nicer ones, some slower ones… and some really sad ones as well. She liked them all.

And tonight, they were really going at it. They were happy, Lisa supposed. Both Johnny and her sister had just graduated today. Cee was accepted at Cambridge, she was starting next semester, and was happy about it.

Was Johnny happy too? He never talked about school, all he wanted to do was sing. He was going to do that and he already had a manager and a whole lot of things that Lisa didn't really understand because he had been talking so fast, but it sounded like he had been excited about it.

_'Are you going to invite me to your concerts when you're famous?'_

_'Sure thing Bit. You'll be my number one fan.'_

_'Yeah.'_

They'd just had that conversation some hours ago before she went to bed and even though his eyes were s dark and he looked so tired and almost sick, he had smiled at her anyway. When Lisa had asked him if he wanted to sleep a while, he had laughed, but it hadn't sounded like he was amused at all. It didn't take a genius to know something was wrong with him, and Lisa was a smart girl after all.

But there were so many other things she didn't know.

oooooo

It was almost three a.m. when she woke with a start. She'd had another nightmare and she was on the verge of tears already, but the sounds of the music coming from downstairs were bringing her back to her own room and away from clawing monsters with red noses and colorful hair.

She really _hated_ clowns!

Lisa sniffed and got up to go to the bathroom. She remembered the rules: no going down when big sis is having a party. She knew why the rules were there too. Some of her sisters friends were nice and fun and smiled pretty, like Johnny. And others were not so nice and really rude. So she kept to the rules, because she didn't really want to meet anybody right now. She just wanted to go to the loo and...

Lisa stopped, her hand froze over the light switch that she had just turned on. The glare of the harsh light made spots dance in front of her eyes so it took her some moments to adjust her vision, but that impression of someone's arm reaching just outside the tub had not been her imagination. It was real... and it was right there, limp and boneless as if he was asleep.

Except he wasn't.

"J-Johnny?"

Her voice came in a whisper. She hadn't ever seen anyone looking like he was looking, but it didn't take experience to know that something was terribly wrong with him. He was almost grey, his eyes sunken and dark in their sockets, skin stretched tightly over his bones, his mouth just a little parted, eyes not entirely closed so that a sliver of white showed in the most horrifying way.

A whisper in her chest told her something terrifying, and it was the particular lick of bone chilling terror that that whisper inspired that spurned her into moving. Lisa stepped towards him and reached a shaking hand forward, but didn't have enough courage to touch him. She had wanted to shake him awake... but what if he wasn't just sleeping?

What if he...

"Wake up Johnny."

_Please wake up..._

But he didn't move a single muscle. Was he ever breathing? He _had_ to be breathing. So she spoke louder.

"_Johnny_."

Her voice didn't tremble so badly this second time. And when he still didn't move, her fear of him being not-asleep won over the fear of anything else. Because if there was any chance that he would wake up if she shook him, it would be worth it. It would be worth the horror she felt in her small body at the thought of touching someone that didn't breathe anymore.

She caught him by the hand...

He was so cold she whimpered at the contact, and heavy tears fell, making her sight blurry. But she could still see him. It was as if her mind had burned the sight of him behind her eyelids. She'd seen plenty of movies.

Nothing had felt this bloodcurdling, not a thing.

Nothing had been so real before. Or hurt this much. Or been so terrifying that her stomach was touching the floor and she felt her heart in her throat beating a mile a minute.

She squeezed his hand tightly, caught his wrist with her other hand and shook hard, as hard as she could.

"Come on, wake up. You need to move, I have to use the loo Johnny."

It sounded so stupid. But she didn't know what to say. What could you say to someone who was so obviously not going to say anything ever again.

"Please... please..."

And by now she was begging and crying in earnest because the panic was over and he wasn't moving still and she was still touching and it didn't feel terrifying anymore, it just hurt. So bad she could hardly breathe for the strength of it. Nothing had hurt this much, she felt like she was about to be sick.

She sobbed hard, rubbed her eyes with her hand to wipe the tears away, but they would stop.

A sound from outside caught her attention. She shook as if someone had screamed at her, and then all the sounds around her came back all at once and Lisa remembered that she was not alone in the house, there were so many people downstairs.

_Cee_ was downstairs. Cee would know what to do.

So Lisa ran. She ran down the stairs for three flights and almost tripped a couple of times but didn't stop. There were people lying on the couches, on the floor, there were bottles and cups and laughter and so much noise and even though Lisa screamed it felt as if nobody heard her.

Not until she caught sight of Flash - the drummer with the hair of such a bright shade of blue that it was impossible to miss him.

Lisa ran to him.

"Flash, where is Cee?" she sounded so anxious, and she was crying and even though she was so clearly distressed, all the eighteen year old and the unfamiliar girls and boys around him did was laugh at the sight of her and her disheveled hair.

"She's around 'ere somewhere." he said flippantly. "What's got you so riled up then? You had a bad dream?"

His pout was mocking, but instead of blushing, Lisa frowned. After all, her sister was not the only one with the steel backbone in the family...

And her sister was not the one who found Johnny Quid in her bathroom, cold and grey and not breathing.

"Tell me where my sister is, blue-boy." She said, and this time it was an order spoken in a tone that made her sound much more like her sister usually sounded. And because Blue-boy was what Johnny always called him and Lisa had always had the impression that Flash didn't like it. She wasn't even thinking that at the moment, the name just came to her.

"Oooh, kitten got claws..." was his response, and everyone around them laughed – but help was on the way, even though Lisa didn't know it.

"Shut it Flash, or I'll tear you a new one. What's going on here?"

At the sound of her sisters harsh voice, Lisa could almost have cried all over again. She turned and saw the contours of displeasure on her sisters face as she spotted her. And just as Cee was about to open her mouth to demand what the hell Lisa was doing down (in her orange nightgown complete with bunnies-print no less!), she caught the look on her little sister face, the tears in her eyes and the paleness of her skin and that was all it took for the irritation to evaporate. Worry had her kneeling and putting her hands on Lisa's shoulders.

"What's the matter, what's wong?"

And the question spurred her into even heavier sobs and faster tears.

"Johnny is upstairs. In… in the bathroom... He's n-not moving, he is… Cee…"

Lisa had never stuttered a day in her life, but she was stuttering now and Cee had a momentary flush of panic. If that blithering idiot had gone and ODed on her little sister bathroom, Cee was gonna raise the fucker from the grave just os she could kill him again. Johnny fucking Quid, what the fuck have you done now.

But throughout all of this, she had already send Lisa away with Miss Jonson to the back of the house. Tea was in order, a strong one to make Lisa sleep without trouble, and as she gave this instruction, she shouted for everybody to get the fuck out of her house while she dialed for the ambulance, hoping against hope and with trembling hands that Johnny would really die, because come on, he _couldn't_. Every rock legend that was worth it had made it to at least twenty something before snuffing it.

For Lisa on the other hand, the rest of the night was a blur. She watched the ambulance stop in front of her house, people come in and Johnny come out on a stretcher.

The next day she overheard her sister saying on the phone that he had died on the way to the hospital.

She cried for a whole day and the one after that, before anyone bothered to tell her that yes, Johnny had died for a few minutes, but he had gotten over it right quick, because the doctors had brought him back.

Johnny didn't come around the house on more after that. And not only did Lisa never see him there, but if she wanted to see him at all she had to buy a ticket like everyone else and go to his shows… and though she did go, she never got tot talk to him. Cee went away to uni and Lisa knew that she did meet with him sometimes, but not once did her sister offer to take her along, not even when Lisa asked her to.

Once or twice she thought he caught her eye in one of his shows… but he never spoke to her again. Not once, in years.

And once she grew up, because she never saw him she slowly grew out of her crush for him. but the fondness she had for him stayed, because more than anything he had been familiar in the way people you care about are, in the way those really close to you can be. And that old part of her that remained a child and clung to old affections twitched inside her heart every time she read in the papers about something outrageous he had done or had been done to him.

Strange how human emotions works. You grown and change and leave pieces of yourself behind all the time as you take on new some things stay with you for better or worse, because they remain the only part of something dear you once had and then lost. Like a favorite doll, or an old memory, or a childhood friend.

_AN: Sooo... what's the verdidt? am i being too much of a tearjerker? I know i tend towards that, and in the next one, which is gonna be from Johnny's pov, Im gonna try to be a little more bare when i write, to fit it to his character._


	3. Chapter 3

_AN: Ok, here is sober Johnny. I did lots of research to write this acurately, and i hope that any one of you who has has experience with these things is not too harsh on me for things i didn't get right, or exagerated, or downplayed. If so, or if i offend anyone in any way, i hope you forgive me, it was unintentional.  
Hope you like. Let me know._

_o_

_Chapter 3_

It was something else, being sober. Being completely clean. At first it had felt almost like a new kind of high, being able to slice and dissect your thoughts without any background fuzzies, without anything running interference, being able to look at the world though clean eyes. it all felt like being born again. After so many years of always tampering with his own body's chemical reactions, being free of anything foreign in it was foreign in itself.

Withdrawals had not been fun. It had felt like walking through hell to come back to something that everyone seemed to call normal, something he didn't even really remember anymore. Good thing he had been locked in a hole during that. Most of the time, he had forgotten why he'd been doing it. Why he was hurting this bad. His mind and body had been screaming at him while he had been plain screaming… but even though he didn't even remember the reason for what he was going through during the worst of his crises, there was something in him, something in his head that kept hammering on that this had to be done. the reason didn't matter, the perseverance to continue was what made the difference, and Johnny was nothing if not a stubborn bastard.

And now that it had been done and the oppressive feeling of being a slave to every imaginable substance he had ever abused was gone, he was able to finally feel _himself _without anything extra adding a compulsive little voice inside his head. At first it almost felt like he was feeling everything more keenly, as if for the first time in years he had complete equilibrium and peace with his senses. As if he could even feel the flame of his own should in his chest, burning brighter…. but that was just the too much poetry he had consumed in his life.

Either way, it felt phenomenal: the simple happiness of being alive, having a choice over what you do, that jolt of joy you feel at being out of where you came from. It felt like nothing else had ever felt before and it was fantastic… which could be dangerous if you didn't show some care.

They warned him about that. Warned him that simply being clean didn't mean _staying_ clean. That that feeling of being on your own in your body was powerful and that you had to learn to control it. The lure of going back into nightmares would get stronger once the high of finally being clean faded, because in the back of your mind you'd know that this newborn feeling of being more alive than ever came after. Being clean could easily become part of the whole addiction circle, a new kind of drug.

Perverse really how easily you could slip back into an old habit.

But there was something about Johnny that the therapists in his clinic noticed right away. There were plenty of problems that the young rocker needed to sort out, but weakness of will was not one of them. On the contrary, Mr. Quid, his philologist observed, demonstrates a perseverance that is quite a novelty and an ability to take into structured part of his rehabilitation in a way that should point to good chances for his recovery.

What that mean in a practical sense was that he had to take it nice and slow for a while. Insert himself in the world of the living little by little, not to expose himself to too much too soon. Not to forget the filth he left behind, because soon the pink cloud of newfound soberness would fade, he'd start living again and maybe he'd forget how bad it was before and fall back.

But Johnny hadn't. It had been a year and a half now and his only poison were death-sticks and coffee. He went to meetings, kept up with his 'parole officer', went to his shrink even though the guy was a bloody pain in the arse. For the first time in his life he did everything right because another thing about Johnny was that he never forgot anything. He was one of those people that could still remember what it felt like to watch yourself decay and fall into a shadow. He remembered now, with excruciating detail, what it felt like to say, 'i have no control over my life' and just take your hands off the steering wheel and let it all go to shit in exactly that way.

he remembered so clearly because for eh first time in quite a long time, he was able to look back and see it. All of it.

...and besides, there was no reason to try to block it out anymore. Nothing to escape from, nobody to hate that way anymore - or dread that way. His reasons for wanting tear away through haze and mayhem and wrap himself in electric guitar sounds so loud you couldn't hear yourself think was now six feet under. Had been for a while too.

All was just fine. Or at least getting there.


End file.
